Forums » Suggestions
Potential faction standing fix.
Lots of people have been complaining about it, and lots of people have been abusing it. I think everyone agrees that the current faction system is in need of repair.
1.) The main problem is that it is far too easy to accrue good standing with your own nation and extremely difficult to lose it unless you consiously try to. Almost everyone, even (I dare say especially) the pirates have in excess of +800 standing with their own nation. That needs to be fixed, and the fix is pretty simple. If a pilot is on a mission to or from a nation or faction, whoever kills him takes a standing hit for that faction, regardless of their respective standings. This applies to nations too and ideally, it should happen in all of the "charted" sectors. Currently, all the sectors except the hidden ones are "charted" so that isn't a big deal. But once the game gets bigger I imagine the devs will have a lot more "black market" or "unregulated" sectors where crime is liable to happen.
2.) Another problem is the "self-defense" penalty that gives pirates disproportionate advantages. If pirates were penalized more heavily for killing people who are on missions without a reason, they would think twice before attacking them. Mission specific cargo should also be tagged so that you take an enormous faction standing hit for trying to sell it anywhere outside specific "black-market" sectors. Selling regular, non-mission specific cargo ought to give you a faction hit as well, but not quite as enormous as that for mission specific cargo. The way I see it, if you already have a "disliked" reputation, it will go up slightly for selling stolen cargo, it will have no effect on people with neutral standing, and it will hurt the standing of people with better than neutral standing. Legitimate businesses wouldn't want to put more trust in pirates than they have to. This would, hopefully, keep piracy relegated to a few more "dangerous" regions of space. A trader who is bold enough to brave these areas and gain a high enough standing with the black market dealers despite the dangers of piracy ought to have a plethora of profitable trade missions open up for him/her.
3.) Most of my suggestions involve the creation of a distinct "underground" black market. I would assume this black market operate on a different faction standing system than other areas. For example, your standing cannot go down for killing someone who is admired by them since that goes with the territory. Criminals live by the sword and die by it. It shouldn't affect them. They operate on a different idea of morality compared to the legitimate businesses like Valent or Orion. In places like this, PKing a notorious pirate would earn you respect rather than hatred. But, since these pirates have access to black market weapons, it would be hard to beat them without equally potent weapons from the "right" side of the law. Having such a high standing with legitimate companies and/or national governments would naturally draw the suspicions of black-market dealers, however, so you would have to play a clever balancing act if you wanted to keep this potentially profitable, but dangerous faction arrangement at a feasable medium.
This way, pilots can go through the black market sectors as long as they are bold enough to get into a fight without feeling the impact of "self-defence penalties." Meanwhile, pilots who PK in non-black market areas of the galaxy would take significant standing hits with them and be hunted by "cops." Getting a standing with "underground" factions, would automatically hurt your standing with the legitimate corporations though, and vice versa. It wouldn't put you at hatred unless you killed their agents while they were on a mission, but it would definitely put you in a state of "mistrust" and all negative faction changes would be made more severe. This way, pilots are actually forced to make a choice. They can have a life of crime among the "underground" by making a living as a pirate or "black-market" dealer; or the life of a legitimate citizen trading with the corporations and/or fighting as a soldier in the armies. The less these two areas overlap in anything less than an antagonistic way, the better the possibilities will be for Role-playing as well as overall fairness.
1.) The main problem is that it is far too easy to accrue good standing with your own nation and extremely difficult to lose it unless you consiously try to. Almost everyone, even (I dare say especially) the pirates have in excess of +800 standing with their own nation. That needs to be fixed, and the fix is pretty simple. If a pilot is on a mission to or from a nation or faction, whoever kills him takes a standing hit for that faction, regardless of their respective standings. This applies to nations too and ideally, it should happen in all of the "charted" sectors. Currently, all the sectors except the hidden ones are "charted" so that isn't a big deal. But once the game gets bigger I imagine the devs will have a lot more "black market" or "unregulated" sectors where crime is liable to happen.
2.) Another problem is the "self-defense" penalty that gives pirates disproportionate advantages. If pirates were penalized more heavily for killing people who are on missions without a reason, they would think twice before attacking them. Mission specific cargo should also be tagged so that you take an enormous faction standing hit for trying to sell it anywhere outside specific "black-market" sectors. Selling regular, non-mission specific cargo ought to give you a faction hit as well, but not quite as enormous as that for mission specific cargo. The way I see it, if you already have a "disliked" reputation, it will go up slightly for selling stolen cargo, it will have no effect on people with neutral standing, and it will hurt the standing of people with better than neutral standing. Legitimate businesses wouldn't want to put more trust in pirates than they have to. This would, hopefully, keep piracy relegated to a few more "dangerous" regions of space. A trader who is bold enough to brave these areas and gain a high enough standing with the black market dealers despite the dangers of piracy ought to have a plethora of profitable trade missions open up for him/her.
3.) Most of my suggestions involve the creation of a distinct "underground" black market. I would assume this black market operate on a different faction standing system than other areas. For example, your standing cannot go down for killing someone who is admired by them since that goes with the territory. Criminals live by the sword and die by it. It shouldn't affect them. They operate on a different idea of morality compared to the legitimate businesses like Valent or Orion. In places like this, PKing a notorious pirate would earn you respect rather than hatred. But, since these pirates have access to black market weapons, it would be hard to beat them without equally potent weapons from the "right" side of the law. Having such a high standing with legitimate companies and/or national governments would naturally draw the suspicions of black-market dealers, however, so you would have to play a clever balancing act if you wanted to keep this potentially profitable, but dangerous faction arrangement at a feasable medium.
This way, pilots can go through the black market sectors as long as they are bold enough to get into a fight without feeling the impact of "self-defence penalties." Meanwhile, pilots who PK in non-black market areas of the galaxy would take significant standing hits with them and be hunted by "cops." Getting a standing with "underground" factions, would automatically hurt your standing with the legitimate corporations though, and vice versa. It wouldn't put you at hatred unless you killed their agents while they were on a mission, but it would definitely put you in a state of "mistrust" and all negative faction changes would be made more severe. This way, pilots are actually forced to make a choice. They can have a life of crime among the "underground" by making a living as a pirate or "black-market" dealer; or the life of a legitimate citizen trading with the corporations and/or fighting as a soldier in the armies. The less these two areas overlap in anything less than an antagonistic way, the better the possibilities will be for Role-playing as well as overall fairness.
I think the idea of a "pirate faction" has been mentioned a number of times, and we'll just have to wait and see what Guild has in mind for this.
More specifically to your post.. I agree there should be harsh penalties for killing people on missions.
So if I'm on a mission for Axia, my standing with them is temporarily increased to +1000 (doesn't have to show that way, but killing me would be equivalent to killing someone of that standing)
Also right now, if I have +1000 for Axia, that will only hurt people's Axia standings if I am killed in 10 or 15. While on a mission for Axia, it should effect their standing if i'm killed anywhere, because logically (game plot wise) i would inform Axia of who pirated me and show them ship logs to prove it.
-Cam-
More specifically to your post.. I agree there should be harsh penalties for killing people on missions.
So if I'm on a mission for Axia, my standing with them is temporarily increased to +1000 (doesn't have to show that way, but killing me would be equivalent to killing someone of that standing)
Also right now, if I have +1000 for Axia, that will only hurt people's Axia standings if I am killed in 10 or 15. While on a mission for Axia, it should effect their standing if i'm killed anywhere, because logically (game plot wise) i would inform Axia of who pirated me and show them ship logs to prove it.
-Cam-
i've been needing to kill Serco pirates in 10... I am now a criminal for axia... somethign has to be done...
I can see it being easy to restrict people from going to certain places with bots, saying that the places are owned by guilds. If the BLAH Guild owner/owners set the bots to kill Player A and Player B, as well as anyone in the HRM guild.
For regular Itani, NT, or Sergo space, I dunno. There's no leader for these regular factions.
For regular Itani, NT, or Sergo space, I dunno. There's no leader for these regular factions.
Magus, what a wonderful idea. Well done. I've been thinking about the same thing, trying to do cargo missions for Serco and getting killed 4 times. Perhaps message like "this pilot is protected by Serco" - in fact you are WORKING for that nation, therefore you should get some kind of protection.
Great job writing it down.
Devs, what do you think??
Great job writing it down.
Devs, what do you think??